The rap about men fearing the maternity ward is as regular as Monday mornings. So common that as O—'s girl was delivering her second baby, a son to carry on his name, we were all outside looking for things to do. It wasn’t hard to find them: hospitals now have restaurants, casinos, and God knows what next.
There should be a German word for the look on your friend’s face when he sees the kind of pain a woman endures in childbirth. When I looked at O—, I saw in his face a gnarled twist I had not before then, and have never since, seen in his store of expressions. The doctor had just cut up his lady, the second Caesarean section in less than two years.
